We stood and gazed in awe, for the weight of the silence and the
solemnity of that holy place seemed to crush us. Above us, cubit over
cubit in its mighty measure, the pyramid towered up to heaven and was
kissed of the night air. But we were deep in the bowels of the rock
beneath its base. We were alone with the dead, whose rest we were about
to break; and no sound of the murmuring air, and no sight of life came
to dull the awful edge of solitude. I gazed on the sarcophagus; its
heavy lid had been lifted and rested at its side, and around it the dust
of ages had gathered thick.
"See," I whispered, pointing to a writing, daubed with pigment upon the
wall in the sacred symbols of ancient times.
"Read it, Harmachis," answered Cleopatra, in the same low voice; "for I
cannot."
Then I read: "I, Rameses Mi-amen, in my day and in my hour of need,
visited this sepulchre. But, though great my need and bold my heart,
I dared not face the curse of Menkau-ra. Judge, O thou who shalt come
after me, and, if thy soul is pure and Khem be utterly distressed, take
thou that which I have left."
"Where, then, is the treasure?" she whispered. "Is that Sphinx-face of
gold?"
"Even there," I answered, pointing to the sarcophagus. "Draw near and
see."
And she took my hand and drew near.
The cover was off, but the painted coffin of the Pharaoh lay in the
depths of the sarcophagus.
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